The Whole Truth
by Rosajean
Summary: Severus Snape is compelled to tell the truth.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything having to do with it and I make no money from this.

There were three things that made Hermione Granger pull her wand on Professor Snape that morning in the Great Hall in front of everyone, the first being simply to shut him up. It's a rare and gratifying day when anyone can put that distinct look of shock and indignation on his face. Seeing the look of betrayal that was swiftly hidden behind his façade though almost had Hermione faltering in her steps before reminding herself that this was for his own good. The professor probably hadn't had to worry about a wand being drawn on him since the war had ended and it was undoubtedly a shock to him that she was doing so after they had so recently declared a tentative truce. The second reason she pulled her wand on the professor was because if she didn't, she's pretty sure one of her colleagues would. There's only so much a reasonable person can be expected to handle and the rest of the staff had clearly reached their threshold if the wrath upon their faces was anything to go by. The third reason was to finally stop the magic that had gotten them into this mess in the first place.

It had all started three days ago at breakfast when a third year student, Roger Quinnen, had approached the head table and asked in a voice that carried over the whole hall, "Professor Snape, if you had to choose between snogging Professor Trelawney and snogging Professor McGonagall, who would you pick?"

Severus opened his mouth to verbally eviscerate the student for daring to ask such an absurd question, but what came out instead was "I wouldn't touch Sybill with a ten-foot pole but rumor has it Minerva is one hell of a liplocker." Snape's eyes grew wide the moment the words left his mouth, apparently flabbergasted by what he'd said. Clearly he wasn't the only one either, if the simultaneous gasps up and down the head table and throughout the Great Hall were anything to go by.

Roger rushed back to his table, eager to get away before the professors could deduct points, and loudly declaring to his friends, "It worked! Did you hear that?! It worked!"

Snape sat still in utter shock for a full minute, inwardly cringing at the outraged whispers and girlish giggling going on around him. He grabbed his cup of coffee and stood up, swiftly making his way to the faculty exit closest to him. In the two minutes it took him to make it back to his office his fury had mounted to an incredible state, culminating in his slamming the door behind him and banging his coffee cup onto his desk. The hot contents splashed over the side, burning his hand and staining the half-graded homework papers littering the desk. No matter, all he needed was a few drops for testing.

The nerve of that brat! Roger Quinnen will be sorry he ever decided to mess with a Potions Master! Detention for the entire semester would just be the start of his punishment! Better yet, he would have the student expelled! How was he ever going to live this down? Him, a Potions Master, clearly dosed with Veritaserum!

Taking a few deep breaths to calm his rage, he strode over to his personal cabinets, unlocking them with a simple wave of his hand. It took a few minutes to find the needed vial as he hadn't had use for it in a long time. This little gem was a potion he had discovered during the war in an old book in the Malfoy library. All he had to do was add 3 drops of the coffee to the potion, give it a shake, and cast a complicated Revealing spell and a gold chart would hover in the air listing all the ingredients found in whatever substance was added, in this case the coffee and undoubtedly the Veritaserum.

Snape pulled a dropper out of a desk drawer and used it to add precisely 3 drops of the coffee to the potion. Stoppering it, he jiggled the vial and waited impatiently for his proof. When the chart finally appeared, he was astounded, and then certain that something had gone wrong. All that was listed was coffee grinds and water. Impossible! There's no way he would have said what he said if he weren't under some kind of influence.

Setting the vial upon his desk, he took to pacing his office back and forth. His mind was spinning with the possibilities. Maybe it wasn't in his coffee. But what else could it have been in? He would have noticed if a liquid had been poured on his breakfast of toast and peanut butter. How did Quinnen even slip the potion to him? He wouldn't have had the time in the short window he was at the head table, and the average duration of a dose of Veritaserum is less than 30 minutes so there's no other time it could have been slipped to him. So what else could it be? He didn't know of anything else that could force someone to tell the truth. A knock upon his office door startled him out of his contemplation.

"What?" He growled at the intruder, throwing open the door. Just as quickly he tried to shut it again, but the Headmistress' foot blocked him from doing so.

"Don't take that tone with me Severus. I'm not the one spouting improper things about my coworkers this morning, or the one who spiked your coffee with Veritaserum. I am assuming that's what it was, wasn't it?"

Severus' cheeks tinged pink at the mention of the things he had said this morning, and about the woman standing in front of him no less. He scrubbed a hand down his face, heartily wishing he had never gotten out of bed this morning, while stepping back and allowing her entrance. She took a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk, while he went around seating himself behind it.

"You should be happy to know that Roger Quinnen has been given a week's worth of detentions for asking such an inappropriate question and further discipline is pending, dependent on proof that he illegally used Veritaserum to drug a professor."

"A week?! That's not nearly sufficient, Minerva," Severus growled out. "At any rate, I don't have proof. I tested my coffee and there's nothing in it but coffee grinds and water."

Minerva sat forward in disbelief and stared at him, contemplating what he'd just told her. "Well, what can it be then? I haven't heard of anything else with similar effects."

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be sitting here, would I? I'd be doing whatever I needed to make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Alright, well I'll see what I can get out of Mr. Quinnen and if that doesn't work I'll ask Albus' portrait and see if he knows of anything. Or maybe one of the other Headmasters will know something."

She stood to leave and headed for the door. She was nearly out into the hallway before Severus spoke up again. "My apologies for this morning Minerva. I didn't mean anything by it."

"Oh don't apologize to me Severus, it was quite complimentary," she said with a smirk. "Sybill on the other hand, is quite worked up about it." Severus shrugged as she left. Frankly, he couldn't give a damn what Sybill thought or felt.

Severus reluctantly got up and followed her out the door. He had a class to teach, Veritaserum or no, and he'd be damned if he let some little third year prank him into cancelling classes.

A/N: This will probably be a fairly short story, maybe 3 or 4 chapters long. I haven't finished writing it yet. Please let me know what you think; I would appreciate it.


	2. Chapter 2

Severus slammed the door behind him as he entered the classroom. The first year Slytherin and Gryffindor students were already seated and quietly staring at him, no doubt wondering what other ludicrous thing he would say this morning. He flicked his wand towards the blackboard and a set of instructions to brew a mild Cleaning Solution appeared on the board.

"You will each be brewing this potion independently. It should be well within your capabilities to do so if you've been doing the reading properly, so there will be no chattering amongst you. The first person I hear conversing with their neighbor will be serving detention for a week with Filch. Now get to work!"

That ought to keep them quiet. No more absurd questions. If it did turn out to be Veritaserum, his first period would be ample time for it to work its way out of his system. If it wasn't, well then he'd be spending his free time figuring out what it was and Roger Quinnen would regret the day he ever dared to cross the Potions Master.

Most of the period proceeded quietly with the students taking his warning of detention with Filch for the dire threat that it was. He spent most of the time making his way around the classroom, observing the students' techniques and making sure they didn't blow anything up. Cleaning Solution was a fairly simple and innocuous potion to make, though rather useful to have around the house. It could clean and disinfect, as well as remove stains off of any surface, both magically induced and otherwise. There was really only one section of the brewing that could prove dangerous if done incorrectly, but he wouldn't put it past these dunderheads to screw it up anyways. Towards the end of the period, Mary Hendershot raised her hand, albeit a bit nervously, to ask the professor a question. It took the professor a moment to notice, but when he did he rolled his eyes and made his way towards her workstation.

"What is it now, Miss Hendershot?" She was always raising her hand for assistance in his class. You'd think by now she would have learned to consult the book before asking stupid questions that she already would've known the answer to if she'd done the reading properly.

"Professor Snape….I…um….I, I think I added too much tail of Mackled Malaclaw to my potion. It looks more grey than green. How do I fix it?"

Severus opened his mouth to tell the girl to 'Figure it out' but what came out instead was "Just add a teaspoon of Haliwinkles and give it three stirs counter-clockwise, you nitwit." Severus stalked away, once again unsettled at seemingly having little control over the words that left his mouth. At least this time he didn't embarrass himself.

Inexplicably, the tension level in the room seemed to increase ten-fold after that, though he wasn't sure why. But he could see some of the students sharing looks of excitement and others, looks of nervous anticipation. When the bell rang he breathed a sigh of relief and dismissed the students. But apparently he had relaxed too soon, as none of the students moved. An awkward, silent moment passed while he stared at the class and the class stared back at him. Then in the fourth row he heard a male student speak up. "Is it true you used to get it on with Lucius Malfoy when you were a student here, Professor Snape?"

"I've never touched Lucius in that way, although he _has_ approached me various times over the years for it, usually drunk on firewhiskey. His wife on the other hand, is another story."

The moment the words were out of his mouth, the students ran out of his class laughing while he stood there, stunned into impotent fury, his face turning crimson, most likely out of both anger and embarrassment. Without warning, every glass in the room shattered, his anger unexpectedly unleashed upon the room. The small portion of him that remained sane was glad there was no one left in the room to be harmed by the release of his magical fury. It had been a very long time since he had last lost control over himself, more than a dozen years probably. But it had also been that long since he had felt so out of control. Control was the very thing he thrived on during the war and even in his every day existence. He was meticulous in everything, and this, well this he didn't know how to handle.

Leaving his classroom in shambles, he made his way to his private lab. He withdrew his wand and undid his wards, making his way inside and heading straight for a workstation. He would brew another Revelation potion, but this time instead of testing his coffee he would be testing his own blood. If someone had found a way to extend the duration of a dose of Veritaserum, or found another way to force someone to tell the truth he would figure it out.

Brewing the potion had a calming effect on his mind. It was over the course of the next forty minutes that he was able to come to the conclusion that whoever had done whatever they'd done to him was way beyond the level of a third year potions student. So that left Roger Quinnen off the hook. Damn it! Undoubtedly, one of the older students was behind this.

As he put out the flames beneath the cauldron, there was a knock at the door. He bade the intruder to enter as he siphoned off the potion into half a dozen vials and stoppered all but the last one. Professor Granger cracked the door open, sticking her head around the door to ascertain she wasn't interrupting a pivotal moment, before opening the door fully and stepping inside. She watched in silence as the professor pushed up a sleeve, took a syringe and extracted a bit of his own blood, dropping a small amount into the potion vial for testing. He stoppered it and gave it a shake, then cast a spell that Hermione had never seen done before, nor could she remember having even read about a similar spell. A gold chart appeared, hovering in the air, and Severus studied it for a few minutes before dispelling it with an angry flick of his wand.

"What is it, Professor Granger?" He asked abruptly, finally acknowledging her presence and turning to look at her.

"Minerva asked me to tell you that she'd like to see you in her office. What was that spell Professor? I've never seen anything like it before."

"None of your bloody business, that's what!" He replied rudely. He turned away to start cleaning his workstation, when he froze in the middle of scourgifying his cauldron. "Wait!" He hollered at her back as she was exiting the room. She turned quickly on her heel to stare at him, nonplussed by his sudden change in disposition. "You just asked me a question." He stated excitedly.

"Riiight. And you refused to answer. What's your point?"

"You asked me a question and I refused to answer! Don't you see? I wasn't forced to answer!" His shoulders slumped in relief as he figured that whatever it was must have run its course. That must have been why he couldn't find anything alien in his blood.

"Congratulations. I'll let the Headmistress know. She'll probably still want to speak with you though."

He nodded his head in acknowledgement and turned away from her again. "Fine. Now get out and leave me in peace."

"There's no need to be so rude, Professor Snape! What's your problem with me anyways?" She didn't really expect an answer from him, but she'd had it up to here with his curt dismissals and all around rudeness to her whenever they interacted. He turned around, prepared to give her an earful detailing exactly what made her so annoying to him, when the words that left his mouth instead were quite different.

"I'm attracted to you, you silly chit! Every moment being in your presence but not being able to touch you is excruciating torture. I've never been attracted to a student, current or former, in my life and as such I find this whole thing ridiculous and unpalatable!" Well, shit. That definitely wasn't what he had intended on saying. What the hell was going on? Was this curse becoming adaptive? Only compelling him to answer the things that were certain to embarrass him the most? It certainly felt that way. And now he had Hermione staring at him like a deer caught in the wand light, her mouth gaping open like a fish. Damn it to hell. Could this day get any worse?


End file.
